LITMIR.BIZ

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telephones that never stop ringing. I don’t want my privacy invaded by cheap little girls in cheap dresses,” he added insolently, sneering at her off-the-rack dress.

      Her lower lip trembled. Tears threatened. But her injured pride wouldn’t let that insult go by unaddressed. “My dress may be cheap, Mr. Sinclair, but I am not.” She lifted her chin. “I go to church every Sunday!”

      Something flashed in the eyes she could barely see. “Church!” he scoffed. “Religion is the big lie. Sin all week, then go to confession. Sit in a pew on Sunday and hop from one bed to another the rest of the week.”

      She just stared at him. “From what I hear, bed-hopping is your choice of hobbies. It is not mine.”

      He laughed shortly. “Women will do anything for a price.”

      As if in answer to that cynical remark, a beautiful brunette in a fashionable dress stuck her head out the door of his lake house. “Connor, do hurry,” she fussed. “The soufflé is getting cold!”

      “Coming.” He gave Emma’s dress a speaking look. “Did you get that from a thrift shop?” he asked insolently.

      “Actually, I bought it off a sale rack. And for a very good price.”

      “It looks cheap.”

      “It is cheap.”

      “Stay off my dock,” he said coldly.

      “Don’t worry, I’ll never walk this way again,” she murmured as she turned to leave.

      “If you take that speedboat on the lake again, you pay attention to where you’re driving it. The lake police will be watching.”

      She didn’t turn around. Her stiff little back told its own story.

      “Impudent upstart,” he muttered.

      “Overbearing pig.”

      She thought she heard amused laughter behind her, but she didn’t turn around. She kept on walking.

      * * *

      Mamie looked up as Emma walked into the living room. The house was two stories high, overlooking the lake. It had a grace and beauty much like Mamie herself. It seemed to blend effortlessly into its surroundings. She was smiling, but the smile faded when she saw the younger woman’s face. It was flushed, and traces of tears marred her lovely complexion.

      “What’s wrong, sugar?” she asked gently.

      Emma drew in a breath. “I didn’t know Connor Sinclair owned the house down the shore,” she said. “I’ve been sitting on the dock, dangling my feet off the edge. He caught me at it and ordered me off the property.”

      Mamie grimaced. “I’m sorry, I should have told you. He spoke to you at the party, about the boat, didn’t he?”

      “Yes, if you can call threats and intimidation a conversation,” she replied with a wan smile. “I wasn’t being reckless at all. I just didn’t see the Jet Ski. It came out of nowhere.”

      “You have to anticipate that people on Jet Skis do crazy things. So do other motorboat drivers. We had a tragedy here on the lake a few years back. A speeding motorboat hit a houseboat and killed two people.”

      “How horrible!”

      “The driver had been drinking. He was arrested and charged, but the passengers on the boat were still dead.”

      “I’ll be more careful,” Emma promised. She grimaced. “I don’t understand why he dislikes me so much,” she murmured absently. “He was horrible to me at the party. And he looks at me as if he hates me,” she added.

      Mamie had a feeling about that, but she wasn’t going to say what it was. She only smiled. “I’ll have a dock built on the lake, just for you, sweetheart, so you can dangle your little feet.” Mamie’s was one of the few homes on the lake that didn’t boast a private dock. Emma had to drive Mamie’s car over to the marina to use the boat. Or walk, if Mamie was away, as she often was, since Mamie was eccentric and only kept one luxury car at her lake house. It wasn’t that much of a walk for someone as young and athletic as Emma was.

      Emma laughed. “You don’t have to go to that trouble. I’ll walk over to the marina and dangle my feet off the docks there. It isn’t as if I can do it much longer, anyway. It’s October already.”

      “With your luck, the dock you choose at the marina will be the one where Connor keeps his sailboat.” Mamie chuckled. “Docks don’t cost that much—they’re mostly empty drums with planking on top. I’ll have someone see about it next week.” She waved Emma’s protests away, then said, “Come on in here, will you, honey? I want to dictate some chaotic thoughts and see if you can inspire me to put them into an understandable form.”

      “I’ll be happy to,” Emma replied.

      * * *

      “Who was the girl on the dock?” Ariel asked as she and Connor shared the overcooked soufflé she’d taken out of the oven.

      “One of the new generation,” he said coldly. “And that’s all I want to say about her.”

      She sighed. “Whatever you say, darling. Are we going out tonight?”

      “Where do you want to go?” he asked, giving up his hope of a quiet night with a good book and a whiskey sour.

      “The Crystal Bear,” she said at once, naming a new and trendy place on the outskirts of Atlanta, near Duluth, where the main attraction was a huge bear carved from crystal and a house band that was the talk of the town. The food wasn’t bad, either. Not that he cared much for any of it. But he’d humor Ariel. She was beginning to get on his nerves. He gave her slender body a brief appraisal and found himself uninterested. He’d felt that way for several days. Ever since that little blonde pirate had almost run into him on the Jet Ski and he’d given her hell for it at Mamie’s party.

      The girl was unusual. Beautiful in a way that had little to do with her looks. He’d seen her, from the porch of his lake house, usually when she didn’t see him. There had been a little girl who’d wandered up on the beach. The blonde woman—what was the name Mamie had called her? He couldn’t remember—had seen her, bent to comfort her, taken the child up in her arms and cuddled her close, drying her tears. He’d seen her walking back down the beach, apparently in search of the missing parent.

      The sight had disturbed him. He didn’t want children, ever. Countless women had tried to convince him, practically trick him into it, for a decade, but he was always careful. He used condoms, despite assurances that they were on the pill. He was always wary because he was filthy rich. Women were out to ensnare him. A child would be a responsibility that he didn’t want, plus it also meant expensive support for the child’s mother. He wasn’t walking into that trap. He’d seen what had happened to his only brother, who lived in misery because of a greedy woman who’d gotten pregnant for no other reason than to trap him into a loveless marriage. That marriage, his brother’s, had ended in death, on this very lake. It chilled him to remember the circumstances. The blonde woman brought it all back.

      Still, the sight of the blonde woman with the child close in her arms, her long, shiny hair wafting in the breeze, made him hungry for things he didn’t understand. She had no money, and wasn’t even that pretty. It puzzled him that he should have such an immediate response to her. That night, at the party, he’d stared at her, hungered for her, wanted her.

      He’d made her cry, frightened her with his reckless anger. He hadn’t meant to. She didn’t seem like other women he knew who pretended tears to get things. Her tears had been genuine, like her fear of him. He’d been shocked when she backed away from him. It had been a long time—years—since anyone had done that. And never a woman.

      Then he’d found her sitting on his dock, laughing as she dangled her feet in the water. The sight had hit him in the heart so hard that it had ignited his temper all over again. He had no need of this blonde woman. He had

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